As time passes, more Pakistani journalists are taking a
closer look at the report of the inquiry into Shahzad's murder at the end of
May 2011. Last week I pointed to an
Umar Cheema piece in The News
that raised several questions that should be answered, including the possibility
of another culprit, beyond the widely held belief that government security
agencies were behind Shahzad's beating death.
The inquiry was, not surprisingly, inconclusive: "No
culprits named in Shahzad investigation, media reports" was CPJ's January
11, 2012 headline. It was a prediction we had made in June 2011 in "Justice
for Saleem Shahzad? We've seen this before..."

As Abbas points out in Sunday's article, "The comprehensive
report gives some useful suggestions and recommendations, including legislation
about the accountability of intelligence agencies, but fails in fixing the
responsibility of the murder due to lack of evidence." He then goes on to
contrast the investigation into Shahzad's death with that of the killing of the
American Pearl in 2002. Pearl's death was the only case of the death of a
journalist that led to a full police investigation, a trial and convictions,
though the process in
retrospect looks flawed.

It is good that, unlike the deaths of so many other
Pakistani journalists, that of Saleem Shahzad has remained a topic of
discussion and hopefully further investigation by journalists, if not the
police. And once they get to the bottom of that one, there are scores of others
that remain to be resolved --- 42 journalists who have been
killed for their work, plus 14 others in which CPJ has not been able to
confirm the motive. In virtually all of these cases, there has been little
beyond a perfunctory police investigation. With that record, Pakistan ranks as
the sixth most deadly country for journalists since we began keep regular
records in 1992. And in 2010 and 2011,
Pakistan ranked as the world's most deadly country for journalists.

Bob Dietz, coordinator of CPJ’s Asia Program, has reported across the continent for news outlets such as CNN and Asiaweek. He has led numerous CPJ missions, including ones to Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. Follow him on Twitter @cpjasia and Facebook @ CPJ Asia Desk.